Short Story; Apprenticeship

Astelle Aeron had been in the adventuring business since she was fifteen.  The initiation process was rough, her village burned, her parents killed, and biker ninjas everywhere.  She'd done what any reasonable Nielda would do in the circumstance; sworn revenge, tracked down the best sword in town, and followed them. 
Luckily, like any reasonably successful adventurer, she'd run into people who actually did know what they were doing.  That was four hundred years ago.  Captain Altar and the rest of the knights had adopted her as one of their own.  She'd learned to fight, how to disarm most traps, and even managed to earn a few runes of her own.  She approached the young man at the bar on the captain's orders.  It was a test.  She'd proven herself a capable adventurer in the past, and the next step for any of the knights was to show that they could teach those skills as well as they'd learned them.  It expressed a great deal of faith in her abilities.  Many, nay most, knights failed this test.  And few took it so young.  She managed to suppress her pride before she tapped the youth's shoulder. 

"What's a kid like you doing in a rough place like this?"
The young man turned.  He wasn't drunk, he must have just eaten something bad.  He seemed determined, if somewhat uncertain of his surroundings. 
"I was hoping to meet someone.  Place like this, with all the shadowy figures and bad guys, I was hoping someone would say something about the Empress' death."
Astelle drew back.  The Empress was dead?  She could only assume it was the Daniellndish one, the Seclorans had an emperor last she'd heard.  Holine had finally kicked the bucket then?  The Lieutenant would certainly be glad to hear of it, Holine had said some rather nasty things about Gwen's grandfather. 
"When did this happen?"
"Two days ago.  They say a Lich tore through the palace wards and summoned a fire elemental and turned her to ash."
It was scary to think of anything being strong enough to tear through the palace wards.  Only Stormguard and the stone circles were better defended.  It had only fallen three times of the course of history; once from within by Zink, once during the shade invasion, and most recently to Arcania who crushed the defenses in person.  Astelle remembered listening to the officers talking in private once, only three immortals had the magical strength to break the wards without being on the palace grounds.  One of them they called 'Petra the Paladin', she was a teacher though, on Krove.  The second Kaithoras had called a serial killer, some sort of impish woman who hunted immortals and killed them gruesomely with a sportsman's cheer.  But the undead Daniellandish weren't technically immortal, if what they;d said was true then the murderer wouldn't have bothered with the Empress.  Even if the process of elimination hadn't dealt with the other two than the last, and supposedly weakest of the three, would have been the top suspect.  She'd been appalled to learn of Arcania's survival.  The queen of the Frostbourne had already proven that she could enter the palace, and she was a constant target of public mockery under Holine's rule.  Perhaps she'd finally snapped and sent one of her minions to kill Holine.  After all, to as accomplished a villain as Arcania, even a powerful lich was practically a foot soldier.  But Astelle knew her limits, Arcania may have been the prime suspect but she was far to powerful for a mere knight to challenge.  Perhaps the whole order united would defeat her, but even then the chances were not good. 

"That's horrible!  I don't suppose anyone knows anything about what happened to the Lich?"
"It must have gotten away.  I heard from my sister, a maid in the palace.  She said the guards only found enough ash for one.  Somewhere, the..the monster who killed the Empress is still alive."  He pounded the bar and then looked up in surprise as the bartender instinctively set a beer down on the counter.  Astelle caught his hand before he could reach it. 
"How old are you kid?"
"Fifteen.  Why?"
She picked up the beer and took a swig.  After she swallowed the brine, which tasted of burnt cranberries and had the texture of slimy cabbage, she set it back down, lightly so as to avoid a refill. 
"Only fifteen?  And you already want to try and take on a lich?  You're going to need more than an education to take down something of that caliber."  He drooped as he realized she was right.  She grabbed his shoulders roughly and pulled him back upright.  "Which is why I'm going to help.  I know a thing or two about adventuring, but anything that can get into the palace is more than I can handle alone.  I'm going to need help, you up to the challenge?"
He lit up.  She felt kind of bad working the kid up like that.  Truth was they were probably never going to find the lich, or Arcania, or anything powerful enough to break the wards.  She wasn't even sure if she wanted to meet anything that powerful, not even on friendly terms.  Still, the kid had the spunk to try and she needed to prove that she could give him the skills and instill the courage and wisdom it would take to do it if she ever wanted to be more than a foot soldier herself. 
She dodged a thrown chair and pulled the kid off his stool.  A fight had started, which considering the clientele wasn't surprising. 
"You've got at least another three weeks of school.  You ought to finish, it could come in handy sometime.  I'll meet you tomorrow at three, in the plaza.  We'll start your training then, deal?"
He shook her hand vigorously, oblivious to the fight going on around them, she'd definitely need to work on that.  "Thank you!  Thank you, so much.  I won't let you down, promise."